


Breath-taken

by MarauderCracker



Category: Black Panther (2018), Daredevil (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Claire is the Night Nurse and anyone who thinks otherwise can Fight Me, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6912052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarauderCracker/pseuds/MarauderCracker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire Temple, her aunt Rosa had said, is cursed. That’s why she keeps getting tangled with superheroes, zombie ninjas, mind-controlling supervillains and what-have-you, and probably why her “nice night out” with Malcolm, that they’d been looking towards for a month, is getting ruined by aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breath-taken

Claire Temple, her aunt Rosa had said, is cursed. That’s why she keeps getting tangled with superheroes, zombie ninjas, mind-controlling supervillains and what-have-you, and probably why her “nice night out” with Malcolm, that they’d been looking towards for _a month_ , is getting ruined by _aliens_.

She bashes an alien’s head with a chair, while Malcolm tries to fend off another one with his backpack and yells that they, _please_ , get the hell out of the restaurant, like all the reasonable people are doing. She’s kicking another creature when two women in black combat gear sweep in, with a masked guy in black after them.

“Miss, please, exit the place,” one of the women tells her, and Malcolm tugs Claire’s arm and whispers, “That’s the Black Panther! Claire! Let’s get out of here!”

She ends up staying in the street, helping the paramedics, while Black Panther, his soldiers and the War Machine finish kicking the aliens’ asses. Malcolm expresses some strong opinions about Tony Stark, War Machine and the industrial military complex while they make tourniquets and reassure scared people. She’s just finished promising a kid that the cut on his forehead is from a piece of glass, not an alien fang, when the Black Panther taps her shoulder.

(She’s seen his face in the news, at one time or the other, and she’d thought that he looked too young and too dashing to be a King, but the camera really didn’t make him justice. Now, with the mask off and purple alien blood staining his suit, he look sort of breath-taking. Claire is breath-taken. The voice of her aunt Rosa echoes in her head, an exhasperated, “ay, m’ija, you’ve always had a rather troublesome taste in men.”)

He’s quickly followed by the two women, who seem to be his bodyguards. Not that he needs bodyguards, if any of what the media says about him is true. “Were many people wounded?” he asks, concerned, while the women ask a parademic if they need any urgent help. 

“All those badly hurt are already on their way to the hospital. Now there’s just some cuts and the occassional concussion,” she reassures him. The falling rubble and exploding glass when the aliens crashed into the building had caused some ugly wounds and even a couple broken bones, but nothing fatal, Claire tells him. “Thank you,” she adds. “For kicking the aliens’ ass and all,” Malcolm jumps in to add, and the man laughs. Claire is. Breath. Taken.

She doesn’t exactly know how she ends up having coffee with a King (capital K, King) but suddenly it’s midnight and T’Challa is back in a formal suit but with his sleeves rolled up and his tie undone, explaining that his diplomatic dinner was crashed by aliens; while Malcolm shares donuts with his bodyguards. 

(T’Challa’s bodyguards are actually called “the Dora Milaje” and her names are Okoye and Nareema. Now that the danger has passed, they are happy to indulge Malcolm with anecdotes from their training years while he points them towards the best pastries in the café, and T’Challa whispers to Claire that Nareema might be exaggerating a little to impress Malcolm.)

It’s two in the morning when T’Challa insists that Nareema and Okoye should go back to the hotel, that he’ll make his way back eventually. Malcolm is more than happy to share the diplomatic car and be dropped at his apartment instead of taking two trains back home. 

Claire and T’Challa walk to her favorite Puerto-Rican restaurant to eat pasteles instead, and they watch the sunrise from her roof-top.

(Maybe it is during that night or maybe it is during one of the many coffee dates they have over months, every time T’Challa comes to the States, but one time Claire talks about how she’s tired of ridiculous romantic entanglements and superhero business messing with her life, and every time T’Challa thinks of how he’s Falling In Love™ with her he remembers those words and decides that he loves her and respects her too much to become another complication in Claire’s life.)

(Maybe it is during that night or maybe it is during one of the many dinners they share over the next year, every time T’Challa finds an opening on his schedule to fly to the States or can fit a date with her along with his diplomatic duties, that T’Challa talks about his sister Shuri and how they both were raised to be their country’s rulers and defenders since they were toddlers, and Claire truly realizes that T’Challa is a King, with capital K, and she’s just a nurse in Hell’s Kitchen and there is no point in falling for yet another person who has a destiny bigger than her.)

And, probably, Shuri mocks T’Challa over this hilarious school-boy crush that has him mooning and pining and talking about Claire _constantly_. And, surely, Claire spends a night or two perched on Luke’s bar, complaining about T’Challa’s latest ridiculously expensive gift and T’Challa’s ridiculous tailored suits and T’Challa’s ridiculously bright smile.

And they have long, deep Talks™ and T’Challa often insists that Claire should take a couple days off to travel with him, and they text _all the time_.

Then the Punisher shows up at Claire’s door asking for the Night Nurse and offering her a bag of money if she can drain his lung full of liquid, and a couple of Russian mobsters show up after him. When Malcolm lets T’Challa know that Claire is in the hospital, he’s more grateful than ever for Shuri’s intelligence and political mind. He leaves the royal duties of the next few days on her hands and flies to New York in a matter of hours. 

The next time they watch the sunrise on her roof-top, she’s got her arm on a sling and he’s wearing a hoodie and sweat-pants instead of a dress shirt and they kiss with the pink sky behind them. Claire tells T’Challa she might be up for that vacation now and, when she smiles, he is breath-taken.


End file.
